Private Capsule Could Replace Space Shuttle

The United States possesses a space launch vehicle that can take the place of the space shuttle.
SpaceX, a private company has developed a space capsule capable of carrying people into space that could be tested in a few months. The Dragon space capsule would initially be used to carry supplies to the International Space Station but it could easily be adapted to haul astronauts into space. SpaceX hopes to test the Dragon and its Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral in a few months. If that test is successful it would take about a year to test the Dragon for use by astronauts.
The Hawthorne, California, based company’s Dragoneye laser guidance system was hauled to the ISS by the space shuttle in July. NASA has given SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to haul cargo to the space station and let it use one of the launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
If Dragon is successful it could put SpaceX in the running for the $50 million Congress has set aside for the Commercial Crew Development program. The CCD is an initiative to help create private manned spacecraft.
Dragon could end up as America’s only space capsule because NASA’s next generation space vehicle the $8 billion Constellation is years behind schedule and over budget. The Review of Human Space Flight Plans Committee recommended scrapping Constellation last month.
Privately held SpaceX is an upstart in the aerospace world it was founded in 2002 by Silicon Valley wiz kid Eldon Musk using part of the $1.5 billion he got from selling from his creation Paypal to E-bay. In addition to the Dragon, SpaceX has developed three heavy launch vehicles. SpaceX has launch facilities at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, Kwajalein Island in the South Pacific and Cape Canaveral. SpaceX maintains research facilities in Hawthorne near the Los Angeles International Airport and a rocket engine test facility in Central Texas.
The pending retirement of the Space Shuttle would leave the United States without a means of launching astronauts into orbit for the first time since the beginning of the Space Race. If SpaceX and competitor Orbital Sciences can’t create an effective launch capability NASA will have to rely on the Russian Soyuz capsules. Media reports indicate that the European Space Agency is considering the purchase of its own Soyuz so its astronauts can reach the ISS.